Thanks Alex for taking the time to post this information and photos. Using all the lenses and ports really helps too. The cleaner shot is a monster. I'd love to see a cropped for detail 16x20 of that one. Wow.

Buy a D2x!! Just kidding... You may want to take a look at this thread where Alex explains (and tests) sunburts with a D70. I think that you overexposed the background on your sunburst picture. You can try higher shutter speeds with the same aperture.

Alex,
Your choice of images really show off the capabilities of the hardware and your talent. Good job!

I was especially impressed with the URPro filter shots. I bet most viewers pass this over without realizing that this color is attained without stobes. Especially the anthias/soft coral reef scene. They don't have the punch of some of the rich saturated macros (especially the turtle), but the fact that they are available light is encouraging.

This is a technique that slide shooters never embraced - video yes, but film, no. Digital gives that immediate feedback to reinforce what is working, and whats not. You say you manual white balanced prior to the shot. Did you card it? Or just try to balance the composition to contain a mix of red and blue subjects. What was the single most cause of rejects? Brownish blues? Warm objects that were close?

What a way to lighten our load! No strobe color photography!

Lastly what about the D2X, made for easy white balance?
Keep up the good work.
Richard Todd
EPIC

I had my grey card with me - but didn't take it underwater as I do not have a convenient place to carry it on my wing (I lost my BC, with its greycard carrying cummerbund, in Hurricane Ivan). So I was just white balancing on the subject. Seemed to work pretty well. I would like to fine tune these WBs a bit in ACR, but at the moment that is not possible because I can't read my D2X RAW files!

I agree with your comments about filters on film.

I don't think that the D2X is any more suitable than any other camera for custom white balancing. I think many cameras do a very good job!